Compost Pedallers – Profile

NATiVE is proud to partner with Austin’s 100% bike-powered compost recycling company: Compost Pedallers. Compost Pedallers collect compostables from homes and businesses and pedals them directly to nearby urban farms and community gardens to grow more local food.

Their mission is to build a more vibrant Austin community by reducing waste, strengthening our local food system, and re-connecting neighbors to each other and the places that they live through more sustainable practices. All without burning a single drop of fossil fuel! Compost Pedallers understand that waste is really just a resource, that’s in the wrong place. Compost enriches soil by providing nutrients that would otherwise be depleted from constant use. So far, they’ve diverted over 610,000 pounds of organic material from the landfill and donated it to over 30 local farms and gardens to grow more food. They’ve saved almost $10,000 for local growers across Austin by donating organics and compost to local urban farms and gardens. Landfills are the second leading producer of methane, a greenhouse gas 22 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Compost Pedallers have cut methane emissions by over 60 tons by keeping organics out of the landfill. They have done all this while saving over 27,000 gallons of fuel using bicycles instead of trucks.

Why They Do What They Do

According to the U.S. EPA, the average American creates roughly 4.38 pounds of waste every day. Ever wonder how much waste Austin makes in a day? Well if you take 885,400 people (Austin population in 2013) and multiply it by 4.38, you get a whopping 4,072,840 pounds of trash create every single day.

Food scraps represent 14.1% of the total waste stream. So by those calculations, our fair city is creating approximately 574,000 pounds of food scraps every 24 hours. By composting just 1% of those scraps, we would be creating 523,775 pounds of finished compost for local growers by the end of 2015.

Ready to take the next step and be a part of a bigger movement? Whether you run a household or a business, Compost Pedallers are here to help turn your refuse into a resource to grow a more sustainable community. It has never been so easy to go green.